TRUST IN PEOPLE SCALE

Reference:
1964 Election Study. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Inter-University Consortium for Political
Research, University of Michigan.

Description of Measure:
A 3-item questionnaire designed to measure individuals’ general level of trust
toward other people. The three items were first used in the 1964 post-election study
conducted by the Survey Research Center and have continued to be used in national
surveys since. Each of the three items provides a dichotomous choice. One of the two
choices is the high trust response, the other is considered the low trust response.

Abstracts of Selected Related Articles:

Hetherington, M. J. (1998). The political relevance of political trust. The American Political
Science Review, 92, 791-808.

Scholars have debated the importance of declining political trust to the American
political system. By primarily treating trust as a dependent variable, however,
scholars have systematically underestimated its relevance. This study establishes
the importance of trust by demonstrating that it is simultaneously related to
measures of both specific and diffuse support. In fact, trust’s effect on feelings about
the incumbent president, a measure of specific support, is evne strong than the
reverse. This provides a fundamentally different understanding of the importance of
declining political trust in recent years. Rather than simply a reflection of
dissatisfaction with political leaders, declining trust is a powerful cause of this
dissatisfaction. Low trust helps create a political environment in which it is more
difficult for leaders to succeed.

Yamagishi, T. (1986). The provisioning of a sanctioning system as a public good. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 110-116.

Both the rational-structural approach and the goal/expectation approach to the

problem of public goods have theoretical difficulties. The structural approach
requires the provision of a sanctioning system to solve the free rider problem.
However, a sanctioning system is also a public good because its benefits can be
enjoyed by all members regardless of their contribution to its provision. A new
problem of the same kind is thereby created in the process of solving the original
public good problem. The goal/expectation approach assumes the inducement of
other members to mutual cooperation through individuals' cooperative actions, a
situation which will be almost impossible in larger groups. To overcome these
theoretical difficulties in the existing approaches, a new approach called the
structural goal/expectation approach is proposed. According to this new approach,
members who have realized the undesirable consequence of free riding and the
importance of mutual cooperation will cooperate to establish a sanctioning system
which assures other members' cooperation instead of trying to induce other members

Self Report Measures for Love and Compassion Research: Trust

 into mutual cooperation directly through cooperative actions, One important
condition for their voluntary cooperation in the establishment of a sanctioning
system is their realization that voluntarily based cooperation is impossible.
Predictions derived from the new approach are supported in an experiment using 48
four-person groups.

Levi, M. & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political
Science, 3, 475-507.

After addressing the meaning of “trust” and “trustworthiness,” we review survey-

based research on citizens' judgments of trust in governments and politicians, and
historical and comparative case study research on political trust and government
trustworthiness. We first provide an overview of research in these two traditions,
and then take up four topics in more detail: (a) political trust and political
participation; (b) political trust, public opinion, and the vote; (c) political trust,
trustworthy government, and citizen compliance; and (d) political trust, social trust,
and cooperation. We conclude with a discussion of fruitful directions for future
research.

Scale:

1.) Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be
too careful in dealing with people?

(a) Most people can be trusted (b) can’t be too careful

2.) Would you say that most of the time, people try to be helpful, or that theya re mostly
just looking out for themselves?

(a) Try to be helpful (b) Look out for themselves.

3.) Do you think that most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance
or would they try to be fair?

(a) Take advantage (b) Try to be fair

Scoring:

The high trust choices are 1a, 2a, and 3b. For each one of these give respondent 1 point.
Thus, all respondents will have a score ranging from 0 to 3, with 0 signifying a very low
level of trust and 3 signifying a very high level of trust.

Self Report Measures for Love and Compassion Research: Trust